Thursday, March 30, 2017

One Less Dickey At Cumulus Media

Lew Dickey

Lew Dickey has stepped off the board of Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, the company he started nearly 20 years ago.

According to Rodney Ho at ajc.com, his reason: “to pursue other professional interests.” His 18-month non-compete clause has expired since he lost his CEO and board chairman position. He still owns a large chunk of Cumulus shares.

But the Dickey presence on the board is not completely over. Former Cumulus VP John Dickey will take over the vice chairman spot.

Dickey founded Cumulus soon after radio deregulation two decades ago. He quickly scooped up small market radio stations and Cumulus became a major player in the radio business.

In 2011, Cumulus purchased Citadel which gave them more major market stations but also weighed the company down with too much debt. By last year, share prices dropped so far below $1 on Nasdaq that they had to do an 8-to-1 share swap to boost it above $1 again. Since then, the price has again fallen below $1 a share again and is now down to 32 cents. Nasdaq will boot the stock off if its exchange if it stays below $1 too long.

The market capitalization of Cumulus, which generates $1.2 billion in revenue a year, is a mere $9.5 million. The Fitz rating firm recently targeted Cumulus as a possible candidate for financial default this year.